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REVIEWS. 



carried out by a very ingenious craniometer contrived by Prof. 

 Huxley.* 



Prof. Harting's Kephalograph, is an instrument constructed 

 mucli on the plan of one used by hatters for the piu'pose of taking 

 the measure and form at the same time of the head ; and it is so con- 

 trived that the outlines thus obtained can be imprinted on paper, by 

 a series of points affixed to the ends of the little sliding rods. 



"We have, ourselves, been in the habit of using an instrument or 

 craniometer, contrived on the principle of a shoemaker's guage, and 

 similar in fact to the "Stengel-Zirkel" of v. Baer; consisting, that is 

 to say, of a stem, a, a, about 12 or 13 inches long, with two branches, 

 b, b, one of which can open out to a right angle by a fixed hinge 

 at one end of the stem, whilst the other, in the same way capable of 

 being placed at a right angle with the stem, may also be slid up and 

 down it, as shown in the woodcut. 



7) 



a 



The same instrument will also be found useful, if not indispensable, for 

 the taking of the radial measures. It is adapted for this piu-pose by 

 the addition of a conical plug c, c, upon each arm, which like the stem 

 are graduated to inches and j^-ths, and which plugs can be slid up 

 and down the arms so as to stand at any given distance from the 

 stem. One of these plugs being inserted into each external auditory 

 opening, its centre will of course correspond with the centre of that 

 opening, and the radial distance from this point to any given point 

 on the periphery of the cranium may readily be estimated on the 

 arms of the craniometer, when the stem is made to touch the peri- 

 phery of the cranium at the desired point. 



As regards the measures to be employed, we are inclined, and for 

 the reasons propounded by Prof. v. Baer, to prefer the English inch 

 divided into ji^ths, to the French metrical system, which, however, 

 appears, from what passed at the Gottingen meeting, Likely to be 

 more generally adopted. It would be very desirable in any case that 

 this point were determined once for all, not only in the interest of 

 craniometry but of science in general. 



* A " nouveau cephalograiilic," apparently on the same principle, constructed 

 by M. Mattliieu, is described in the Bulletins de la Soc. d'Anthrop. II. p. 680. And 

 another cephalometer by M. Anteline is also mentioned, but not described. 



